First, I have no problem with FFG's product model for "Imperial Assault" i think it's fine to sell characters on their own. this makes the game slightly better for skirmish players, collectors and such.

BUT

You have no idea how disappointed i was that the box filled with miniatures with Thrawn on it, does not in fact have a Thrawn miniature inside it.

This will be a bigger disappointment to anyone who does not research what is inside the box before buying it. my advice would be to change the cover art or perhaps if it's super important to have a Thrawn on the cover you go ahead and put that 20 cent piece of plastic in the box.

This is how every.single.expansion.works.

Boba Fett on the Cover of Twin Suns. Bossk on the cover of Bespin Gambit.

Thrawn is in the box, in that he's represented by a chit, along with his deployment cards.

You're definitely able to play that way if you want to.

The mini comes separately, and I guess that's kind of a bummer, but it's not like you'd say to not feature Luke on the Rebellion box just because the game didn't come with a plastic mini of him

2 hours ago, Boba Rick said:

This is how every.single.expansion.works.

That doesn't make it ok!

We are currently in a miniture's game forum and representing the character on the cover with a chit is stupid. it's garbage and I hate that FFG still does it.

if you want the sales from having a real character on the box of a miniatures game then put that character's miniature in the box.

or perhaps FFG is admitting that their fan fiction characters made for the campaign are not as appealing and they should let people play campaign mode with the characters they like.

2 hours ago, Rikalonius said:

Boba Fett on the Cover of Twin Suns. Bossk on the cover of Bespin Gambit.

Jabba on Jabba's Realm.

I get being upset, but it’s always been this way. Furthermore, when I was a campaign-only player I preferred this. I didn’t want to pay extra for a figure I could only use in just one campaign.

-ryanjamal

I think the worst insult of all was depicting Jyn on the cover of Heart of the Empire. Not only is her miniature not in the box, but there appears to be no gaming materials of any sort to represent her, tokens or otherwise. It was bad enough when they pulled that stunt with Diala on Hoth, but now I'm hopping mad.

@ryanjamal

Without getting into pedantic discussions on using the Agenda cards to force a mission to get your favourite villain into any campaign, the Nemesis deck from Jabba's Realm let's you open any campaign with whatever Villain you want to go out and stymie the heroes' efforts. Now you can retcon Thrawn into all your old campaigns!

3 hours ago, TylerTT said:

That doesn't make it ok!

We are currently in a miniture's game forum and representing the character on the cover with a chit is stupid. it's garbage and I hate that FFG still does it.

Are they forcing you to buy it against your will or something? I don't get all the angst. If it's not ok for you and you hate FFG, then go buy some other game and for goodness sake don't hang out on their forums with all of their fans...

I can hate what a publisher does and still enjoy their stuff and still buy it. I just think its a bad thing to do.

But Thrawn is in the box. That‘s why he‘s on the box

He will be the main villain in the campaign. He is in the game and that‘s why he should be in the box.

I get why you want a miniature in addition to his rules, his card and his campaign to replace the token, but thats not how it works.

And just because you want it to be different does‘t make putting Thrawn on the bo cover wrong.

If they‘d put his miniature and the skirmish scenario also in the box, then the price would go up respectively. And in this case you would take away the choice of campaign players who don‘t want to spent the extra money for stuff they don‘t need, wether to add the miniature or not.

I am totally fine with this.

Not to come off negative, but why is Thrawn in IA at all?

There's little to no reason that any ranking member of the imperial navy would be involved in a ground skirmish at all, especially a Grand Admiral. I could possibly see a situation where an officer might be boarded, then attacked, but Thrawn is supposed to be too smart for that. He would have an escape plan that would prevent him from being involved.

Rukh should be a unit and Thrawn should be a companion.

Oola is on the box of Jabba's Realm.... and there's not even a cardboard token of her.

Another reason or coincidental plus side to have certain characters in separate blister packs are for those who don't play Imperial Assault, or don't want to buy every single thing. There is a reason why Boba Fett sells out quickly.

7 hours ago, thestag said:

Not to come off negative, but why is Thrawn in IA at all?

There's little to no reason that any ranking member of the imperial navy would be involved in a ground skirmish at all, especially a Grand Admiral. I could possibly see a situation where an officer might be boarded, then attacked, but Thrawn is supposed to be too smart for that. He would have an escape plan that would prevent him from being involved.

Rukh should be a unit and Thrawn should be a companion.

I agree, and I've made the point before when people say they want Tarkin. They are fleet level commanders. I don't think Palpatine should be in it either, nor do I think Yoda should ever make an appearance, but people want their favorite characters. I'm still looking forward to Thrawn, however. And you can make a case for it based on Rebels. Also, Noghri would have made a better edition than Loth-cats.

@Rikalonius

Of course people want their favourite characters. There's no way anyone would have wanted this game if there wasn't a promise of Darth Vader on the Core box.

Now, if we're talking about the thematic disconnect of high ranking officials being involved in Campaign missions, I can see the argument for keeping people like Thrawn, Palpatine, Tarkin, etc away from the action. But this is dungeon crawl action schlock, so you need your Big Bads, and it's better if we recognize who they are, since it's Star Wars.

I'm actually more puzzled about the people lobbying for Rogue One characters (or really anything about that movie in general) since all they did was jump on a ship and get themselves conveniently killed and written out of the saga like the nothing characters they are. They have even less of a place in IA's campaigns.

Now for the Skirmish game I look at it a little differently. It's like a typical "what if" matchup in an arcade-action scenario with some objectives to score and that's about as far as you really need to take it in terms of making it "work" from a thematic point of view. Palpatine losing to a bunch of nothing Weequays? Makes no sense in the "proper" context of the characters but in arcade action game where we steal some crates back to our deployment zone for points, it's easier to forgive since you're not exactly throwing down for a Skrimish match to get a gripping narrative and development of your favourite Star Wars characters.

As for the Loth-cats, the Creature command card they showed in the preview article suggests that the kitties made it in to have a reason to include some Creature love with Skirmish, and the Loth-cats work in the context of a Lothal box, obviously. Maybe the wolves would have been a better pick, but I like some potentially useful and cheap units to give Mercs lists more variety then just plopping down all the Hunters.

Noghri would have likely taken up the Imperial slot, which is currently occupied by the Deathtroopers everyone's been crying for, so maybe on another expansion?

19 hours ago, Rikalonius said:

I agree, and I've made the point before when people say they want Tarkin. They are fleet level commanders. I don't think Palpatine should be in it either, nor do I think Yoda should ever make an appearance, but people want their favorite characters. I'm still looking forward to Thrawn, however. And you can make a case for it based on Rebels. Also, Noghri would have made a better edition than Loth-cats.

I feel like people may not be aware of all the wider material surrounding thrawn or tarkin now. they do get involved in several scraps, infantry based scraps as well as starship based.

I’m just happy to get a box at this point, they can put Big Bird on it if they want. And we can reenact the Time Vader did a cameo on Sesame Street

Thrawn doesn't feel weird in IA to me at all.

The amount of times he gets into fisticuffs with the Spectres makes me think he rather enjoys a brawl every now and then, to be honest.

2 hours ago, subtrendy2 said:

Thrawn doesn't feel weird in IA to me at all.

The amount of times he gets into fisticuffs with the Spectres makes me think he rather enjoys a brawl every now and then, to be honest.

I think Thrawn does enjoy the adrenaline rush of some fisticuffs. The thing about Rebels, is for a show that has a pretty weak military IQ, they do a good job portraying Thrawn as a good strategic AND tactical thinker.

I also find it utterly despicable, disrespectful to the moronic and misleading to the dull-witted to put an awesome and thematically fitting artwork depicting the cool villain of the campaign on the box when his figure is not included in the box, but sold seperately as a figure pack for people who are not necessarily into the campaign but like to collect all the great characters. Also, how dare you expect anyone to just have a look at the back of the box to see what is in it, that'd be too much of research! What a disgrace! This is a scam. A big, bad scam! Very sad!

35 minutes ago, Rikalonius said:

I think Thrawn does enjoy the adrenaline rush of some fisticuffs. The thing about Rebels, is for a show that has a pretty weak military IQ, they do a good job portraying Thrawn as a good strategic AND tactical thinker.

That's true. And I think in part, it's because we frankly rarely see large scale conflicts.

People often compare IA to Rogue One, but honestly Rebels is an even better comparison to this game. Small, squad based battles that are dwarfed even by the battle at Scarif.

That's why I actually think Thrawn was a poor choice initially for a villain for Rebels, but I think they did a pretty good job adapting him given the circumstances. That's why I have faith he'll work in IA, too.

11 minutes ago, Fourtytwo said:

I also find it utterly despicable, disrespectful to the moronic and misleading to the dull-witted to put an awesome and thematically fitting artwork depicting the cool villain of the campaign on the box when his figure is not included in the box, but sold seperately as a figure pack for people who are not necessarily into the campaign but like to collect all the great characters. Also, how dare you expect anyone to just have a look at the back of the box to see what is in it, that'd be too much of research! What a disgrace! This is a scam. A big, bad scam! Very sad!

Fake news?

19 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

People often compare IA to Rogue One, but honestly Rebels is an even better comparison to this game. Small, squad based battles that are dwarfed even by the battle at Scarif.

Yeah, IA campaigns don't really compare to Rogue One. You actually care about what happens to your characters in IA and hope they make it to the ending.

32 minutes ago, subtrendy2 said:

That's true. And I think in part, it's because we frankly rarely see large scale conflicts.

People often compare IA to Rogue One, but honestly Rebels is an even better comparison to this game. Small, squad based battles that are dwarfed even by the battle at Scarif.

That's why I actually think Thrawn was a poor choice initially for a villain for Rebels, but I think they did a pretty good job adapting him given the circumstances. That's why I have faith he'll work in IA, too.

I agree. I was skeptical when I saw him in the adverts, but it turned out to be one of the best things for Rebels. I'm glad they left out the ysalamiri. I was ok with his Noghri, though he wasn't too much like their former depictions. It was an acceptable change.

I always found this to be customer friendly. I rather have miniatures for units I can use in every mission. Boba Fett, Bossk, Jabba and I'm sure Thrawn are important to the campaign story, but value wise they show up once or perhaps twice in their campains.